Lack of access to nutritious food is not only more likely to affect those already facing difficulties such as poverty, economic shock and public health crises; when communities do not have adequate access to nutrition, they have a harder time fighting back against these challenges. As a result, ensuring adequate food security ultimately helps build resilient communities, breaking the cycle of poverty and creating economic growth, greater equality and better development outcomes.

In our goal of increasing food security, DG and our partner Athena Infonomics (AI) are supporting researchers, program implementers and development partners engaged in Feed the Future programming across Cambodia and Nepal. We aim to identify opportunities for strengthening data and digital interoperability across Feed the Future agriculture and nutrition portfolios to support better-informed decision making.

To strengthen interoperability, DG, AI, and mSTAR have been tackling the challenge of data sharing, accessibility, and use: seeking to understand what data producers and users need and how to support sustainable data usage. Over the past month, DG and AI have conducted a series of key informant interviews with partners and research hubs. While both Nepal and Cambodia offer unique challenges and opportunities, the researchers found commonalities across contexts.

Data Collection: The majority of interviewees (60%) reported using only paper-based data collection tools. Reasons for this preference varied from limited internet connection, to limited program budgets – and most acknowledged that the use of pen and paper makes transforming data into electronic formats time and labor intensive. Interviewees’ preference for either electronic or paper-based data collection – and the various reasons behind this preference – will inform how DG, AI, and mSTAR develop tools and processes to support greater data interoperability and knowledge sharing.

Data Sharing: As in other contexts, most data sharing amongst USAID-supported research labs and implementing partners occurs on an ad hoc or as needed basis. Professional networks – and in some cases thematic convenings – help facilitate this information sharing. Interviewees did express interest in having an ability to access data in a more centralized and standardized way. Particular use cases for this type of open data repository include the ability to reduce duplication of primary data collection and to facilitate resource pooling amongst organizations working in the same catchment area.

Data Use: All interviewees reported using a combination of internal and external datasets to satisfy analytical and reporting requirements. Generally, interviewees also expressed a high level of comfort using data analysis tools. Some expressed interest in learning more about how to incorporate geospatial data into analyses, while others expressed interest in learning new data science software packages. As a key takeaway, in order to facilitate data sharing across partners, we will need to facilitate the sharing of standardized data with detailed methodology notes, in order to ensure partners have confidence in the data quality. We look forward to developing and rolling out tools and processes to help address the challenges and opportunities above. By facilitating greater data and digital interoperability, DG, AI, and mSTAR aim to strengthen knowledge sharing and – ultimately – support better food security outcomes. Stay tuned for updates as our work progresses.

To read the original blog, click here. Photo credit: USAID/Cambodia and Fintract, Inc.

In Liberia, thousands of health and education workers enrolled in mobile money. In Bangladesh, loan payments were revolutionized for farmers. Globally, a new toolkit was launched to help close the digital gender divide. As we begin gearing up for the new year, it’s incredible to think of everything we achieved in 2017.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the highlights this year brought the mSTAR team:

Mobile Money in Liberia

In Liberia, mobile money is changing the way civil servants in rural areas receive their salary. Since 2016 when mSTAR/Liberia activities began, 803 health workers and 2,299 education workers spanning 11 counties have enrolled in mobile salary payments. In addition, mSTAR helped facilitate a second digital service provider, Orange, to implement mobile money payments with the Government of Liberia. An increase in healthy competition for Liberia’s DFS market will prove beneficial for civil servants by driving down prices, increasing service points and more. mSTAR also produced many materials to educate civil servants on the mobile money process such as a training video, cartoon, poster, brochure and much more. Mobile salary payments have saved health and education workers surveyed a day and a half of time. Now, they can spend more time with their patients and students.

Accomplishments in Bangladesh

In addition to Liberia, mSTAR had many accomplishments in Bangladesh. Starting in September 2013, the primary goal of the project was to help USAID implementing partners digitize their payments. From 2013 to the successful closeout of mSTAR/Bangladesh in fall 2017, mSTAR’s efforts helped over 25,000 individuals enrolled in DFS accounts and mSTAR helped USAID IPs and beneficiaries transact more than $2.2 million through DFS. mSTAR also helped pilot test two new DFS innovations to promote financial inclusion to smallholder farmers, resulting in over 3,100 farmers registering in these initiatives. These new financial products will allow farmers access to agricultural loans, savings, transfers and merchant payments. mSTAR showcased its Bangladesh work in a video watched more than 1,000 times.

Closing the Digital Gender Divide

In November, the Gender and ICT Survey Toolkit was launched! The toolkit was designed to help close the digital gender divide by not only addressing how to close the gender gap, but understanding why there is one to begin with. With 1.7 billion women not owning mobile phones, this resource can assist development practitioners in understanding the specific barriers for digital gender inclusion and work to effectively drive change.

In 2017, mSTAR used its skills and knowledge to implement positive changes in the development sector as a whole and in people’s everyday lives. It is exciting to watch the impact of our digital development activities grow over time as they take hold across the development sector and beneficiary populations. mSTAR looks forward to continue its efforts into 2018!

Market competition can offer benefits such as improved pricing, options, service points and coverage. This is no less true among mobile financial service providers. For example, since mobile financial services launched six years ago in Bangladesh, the dominant provider, bKash, has lead the pack with over 24 million subscribers but over 10 banks and additional third party providers also contribute to the market. In Tanzania, M-Pesa entered the market in 2009 and still holds the highest market share at 42 percent, but there are now five competitors driving development of the digital financial services ecosystem.

Compared to counterparts in East Africa, Liberia is relatively new to mobile money. Lonestar MTN, one of the largest mobile network operators (MNO) in Liberia, debuted their mobile money product in 2011. Orange Money, the only other mobile money provider (formerly Cellcom’s Smile Mobile Money), launched in February 2016 and has since expanded from Monrovia to 13 of 15 counties. Combined, the two providers have over 1.6 million subscribers. For a nation of 4.6 million, mobile money has shown significant growth.

While Liberians use mobile money primarily for person to person transfers (P2P), the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project supports the Government of Liberia in offering government to person (G2P) payments. mSTAR assists the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health in rolling out mobile money payments to civil servants on a county-by-county basis. To date, 2,544 Education staff and 803 Health staff enrolled in this option in 12 counties.

In Liberia, financial inclusion is challenged by factors such as banks that are often difficult to access. Wire transfer fees to send money to family across the country that are prohibitively high. Mobile money attracts customers by avoiding these challenges. Customers can send and receive money on their phone and cash it out at a nearby agent for a small fee while avoiding poor roads to the bank, system outages and long lines.

Despite mobile money’s many benefits, the system is not without its flaws. While Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia, experiences fewer issues, other cities and especially rural areas find challenges that include a lack of cellular connectivity (a mobile transfer is of little use if the phone cannot connect to send/receive) and liquidity shortages (mobile money requires that the agent has enough cash on hand to pay the customer.) These issues are exacerbated by power shortages and underdeveloped infrastructure such as bad roads, some of which are unnavigable during the April-November rainy season, which constrains liquidity. Liberia is a nascent mobile money market with a very recent second entrant. The market is becoming competitive but competition has not yet taken off and incentives to drive product, service and price improvements are still limited.

While cellular coverage is similar between Lonestar and Orange throughout the country there are also areas only covered by one provider where users often have one SIM rather than one for each, as is common in well-covered areas. This has been difficult for G2P payments rollout because the GOL has only offered civil servant salary payments with Lonestar since Orange did not have the national presence required to participate. Civil servants who want to switch to mobile money payments but live in areas without Lonestar coverage frequently complained about the lack of options. To address this problem, in November 2017 the GOL officially brought Orange in as a second provider authorized to transmit government salary payments. This is celebratory news for civil servants and the development of Liberia’s digital financial services ecosystem.

…in November 2017 the GOL officially brought Orange in as a second provider authorized to transmit government salary payments.

At the start of the salary payment program, mSTAR supported the GOL in facilitation of negotiations and development of two Memoranda of Understanding with Lonestar which allowed the GOL to offer Lonestar mobile money as a payment option. In the same vein, mSTAR has worked with the GOL to come to a similar agreement with Orange. mSTAR has provided data used in decision making and technical support to conceptualize rollout of mobile money salary payments. The new Orange MOU will allow market competition for G2P salary payments for civil servants.

An increase in service providers and market competition will benefit civil servants who will be enabled to select their provider of choice. The competition should drive down prices and increase service points. It can be expected that as service improves, mobile money will be an option for more Liberians and mobile money agents will have a larger customer base. Competition can move to different aspects of service delivery beyond network coverage and pricing, such as payment product integration and user friendliness, innovation around new financial products and services to promote financial inclusion and value-added services such as market and weather information and health messaging.

Competition, as seen in other digital financial service markets like Bangladesh and Tanzania, is integral to growth and the launch of additional financial opportunities. Will competition in Liberia result in new and diverse products? Additional market entrants? Effective interoperability? Broader financial inclusion for the 72 percent still unbanked adult population? There is optimism that this is what the future could bring. In the short-term it is apparent that Liberia is headed in the right direction.

Erica Bustinza is the Chief of Party of mSTAR activities in Liberia. She has worked in development for over 10 years in various geographic regions and sectors, primarily focused on access to finance, economic development and technology integration.

Much has been written about the gender gap in mobile phone usage, specifically on why women are less likely to have access to this technology than men; why women are less likely to be technically literate than men; and why women are less likely to be aware of the many potential benefits of a mobile phone. We recognize that there is a gender gap, as high as 38 percent in South Asia. Within the development community, there is no disagreement that this digital gender divide needs to be addressed in order to drive women’s economic empowerment and ensure a more equitable future. However, there are varying points of view on how to close this gap.

While there is no magic formula that can close this gap, it is clear that before we look to balance digital access and adoption for women, we need to understand the underlying reasons for the divide. For instance, Sub-Saharan Africa might have a 13percent gender gap, but that statistic is not indicative of every community across the continent. Continent-wide averages actually mask significant variance between different countries, ranging from 8 percent in Kenya to 45 percent in Niger.

In order to understand the digital gender divide, we cannot depend on regional, country or even state averages. Instead, we must know how people interact with technology at a community level. Recognizing this, USAID commissioned the Gender and ICT Survey Toolkit to address the lack of gender disaggregated data at the sub-national level. The Toolkit facilitates the collection of gender disaggregated information with a series of resources, including survey questions, focus group discussion guides and technical competence tests, as well as instruction on research design and data sorting. Breaking the findings down into key themes such as control, social norms and digital literacy allows the user to understand the specific barriers at play at a sub-national level, and how to address them.

If development practitioners don’t understand the shape and size of the digital gender gap, how can we expect to effectively drive change? Over the next few months, we will be rolling out the Gender and ICT Survey Toolkit to our USAID colleagues, and training partners and peers across development organizations in-person and with online webinars and workshops, to improve data collection on the digital gender divide.

With the Gender and ICT Survey Toolkit, we recognize that every community is unique and when we better understand gender dynamics, we can address the gaps effectively and respectfully. Through this resource, we hope to enable a more data-driven approach to ICT4D implementation, and in doing so, helping to close the digital gender divide.

As mSTAR’s project in Bangladesh comes to a close this fall, mSTAR/Bangladesh staff write on their perspectives from four years of a successful project, where mSTAR/Bangladesh helped enroll over 25,000 individuals—most of whom are women—into digital financial service accounts and helped USAID IPs and beneficiaries transact around $2.2 million digitally. The activity brought two new financial products to market with Bank Asia and IFIC Bank, including micro-credit to farmers with lower interest rates and more favorable repayment terms than any other alternative on the market today. Through this effort, mSTAR/Bangladesh facilitated loan disbursements to more than 1,500 farmers to date, with more on the way. Check out our four-year retrospective infographic here!

By Josh Woodard, Regional ICT & Digital Advisor

When mSTAR first started activities in Bangladesh in September 2013, the mobile financial services (MFS) market was still in its relative infancy, having only launched less than two years prior. At that time, it was very much a domestic remittance service with people using MFS to send money to friends and family elsewhere in the country, much of which was done through unofficial over-the-counter services rather than individual mobile wallets.

Our initial mandate in Bangladesh was to help USAID’s implementing partners digitize their payments, so that implementing partners no longer needed to send people with backpacks full of cash from Dhaka to pay field expenses, such as training allowances. Bangladesh was in some ways an initial testing ground for USAID’s move away from cash in its programming, codified in its Procurement Executive’s Bulletin from August 2014, making electronic payments the new default for USAID awards.

These benefits inspired other USAID implementing partners to explore transitioning away from cash without grant support from mSTAR. Through a mix of technical assistance and trainings, mSTAR supported 40 USAID programs to better understand digital financial services (DFS), including MFS and agent banking. Through our awareness raising activities over the past four years, we developed more than 70 learning documents and trained close to 600 people on DFS. In total, USAID programs receiving mSTAR support transacted more than $2.2 million, including transactions made to and by their beneficiaries, which numbered more than 25,000 individuals, two-thirds of whom were female.

In 2014, to encourage greater focus on the needs of the financially excluded and underserved, we launched the Mobile Money Consultative Group (MMCG), which promotes dialogue and partnerships and was modeled on previous work done by FHI 360 in Malawi. Over the past three years, the MMCG grew to include dozens of members from the development, telecommunications and financial services sectors, eventually adopting the name Digital Finance Consultative Group to better capture its broader membership base. It was so valued that in anticipation of mSTAR’s closing, members transitioned the group to a new coordinator, UNCDF, which recently hosted the first meeting independently of mSTAR.

As the market grew, mSTAR played a crucial role in ensuring that DFS providers were considering the financial needs of Bangladesh’s millions of financially excluded individuals, many of whom are supported by USAID’s programming in country. We began conducting assessments looking at opportunities for digitizing transactions and expanding DFS offerings, including examinations of saving groups, agricultural value chains, and agricultural mechanization. These have already contributed to the deployment of two digitally-enabled micro-credit products for smallholder farmers, the first-of-their-kind in Bangladesh, as well as modifications to the pricing structure and product offerings of several other providers.

It is refreshing to see that the DFS sector in Bangladesh is finally moving past the pure domestic remittances model to a increasingly holistic one that more broadly meets the financial needs of Bangladeshis—although it still has a distance to travel. In some ways, it is bittersweet to have to end our work in Bangladesh right when the DFS market seems to be picking up momentum. However, I am proud of the contributions we have made to promote inclusive DFS growth in Bangladesh. I am hopeful that our objectives over the past four years will continue to be realized by other actors in the DFS ecosystem we played a small role in shaping.

Josh Woodard is a Regional ICT & Digital Advisor for FHI 360, based out of its regional office in Bangkok, Thailand. He has provided technical oversight to the mSTAR team in Bangladesh since the beginning of implementation in 2013. In addition to the mSTAR blog, he occasionally shares his perspectives on digital technology and development on LinkedIn.

This post is excerpted from a monthly theme series from NextBillion focusing on agriculture during the month of September. It was authored by Cristina Manfre, senior associate with Cultural Practice LLC, and Christopher Burns, senior coordinator, digital development for Feed the Future at USAID.

Over the past 10 years, and particularly over the past five, the use of mobile phones and internet-enabled, digital tools in farming activities has skyrocketed. Today, the smartphone or tablet is no longer seen just in the developed world; at least one mobile phone now sits in the pockets or hands of over 60 percent of the population in the developing world. Coupled with the increased spread of 3G and 4G connectivity, and the growing presence of mobile money products, low-cost sensors, geospatial visualization and machine learning, what has emerged is a broad set of digitally based applications that have driven greater financial inclusion, more precision agriculture, better data collection and analytics, and more effective information dissemination. Agricultural organizations are increasingly embracing these tools to better provide for the welfare of the communities they serve.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, through the U.S. Global Development Lab and the Bureau for Food Security, is working to demonstrate that digital tools and approaches can improve cost-effectiveness and better development outcomes in food security and nutrition programs. As part of this effort, USAID is launching a case study series to highlight different approaches to digital tool adoption and how these tools are impacting organizational culture, operations and programming.

The series profiles different organizations, from social enterprises to non-governmental organizations and traditional private businesses across a number of regions, from sub-Saharan Africa to Latin America to South and Southeast Asia. Greater attention is being given to Feed the Future (the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative) countries and the newly released target countries under the Global Food Security Strategy. Most organizations and projects being showcased have received some form of USAID assistance.

Read the full blog here and learn how digital tools are being used to enhance development outcomes in food security & nutrition programs.

As mSTAR’s project in Bangladesh comes to a close this fall, mSTAR/Bangladesh staff write on their perspectives from four years of a successful project, where mSTAR/Bangladesh helped enroll over 24,000 individuals—most of whom are women—into digital financial service accounts and helped USAID IPs and beneficiaries transact around $1.83 million digitally. The activity brought two new financial products to market with Bank Asia and IFIC Bank, including micro-credit to farmers with lower interest rates and more favorable repayment terms than any other alternative on the market today. Through this effort, mSTAR/Bangladesh facilitated loan disbursement to 795 farmers. Both banks are interested in scaling up these efforts.

By Tajmary Akter, mSTAR/Bangladesh Technical Specialist

At mSTAR/Bangladesh, we have found that digital financial service (DFS) feasibility assessments are an excellent method to accelerate DFS uptake. When determining digital financial service feasibility, assessments are integral to understanding and analyzing context. They provide insights to understanding community needs, challenges, opportunities and potential action and are proven to be an effective method for learning and evaluation.

In the Bangladesh context, the DFS market is dominated by mobile financial services, especially person-to-person money transfers; other usage options have not yet reached a significant portion of the unbanked, low income and rural communities. mSTAR/Bangladesh has conducted several assessments since 2013 to understand this and explore opportunities for DFS integration in development working areas, especially health and agriculture.

As a member of the mSTAR/Bangladesh team, I was able to take part in several assessments addressing some of the following objectives:

Identifying the constraints or root causes that explain why DFS is currently not being adopted among unbanked, rural and low-income populations.

Identifying opportunities based on assessment findings to troubleshoot existing challenges and accelerate DFS in the broader context.

The assessment findings significantly contribute to troubleshooting challenges by identifying community needs. For example, from learnings identified in assessments, our team was able to contribute to the design and execution of two DFS innovations targeting smallholder farmers and businessmen in rural communities:

A card-based micro-credit facility through agent banking with Bank Asia, in partnership with the USAID Agricultural Extension Support Activity.

An agri-credit facility through mobile bank accounts with the IFIC Bank, in partnership with the USAID Rice Value Chain activity.

Assessments have the potential to help drive DFS innovation by analyzing opportunities in existing transaction channels like our team did in an agriculture value chain assessment in February 2017. This kind of assessment not only explores opportunities at the local community level but also at the organizational level. The assessment showed that adopting DFS in a suitable way could offer an organization’s increased operational efficiency by saving time, resources and costs. Another recently published assessment conducted by the mSTAR/Bangladesh team determines DFS feasibility in agricultural mechanization value chains.

Through different assessments, our team has been able to provide insights and recommendations for why, what and how DFS may integrate efficiently into different sectors. Through these efforts, we have been able to support our overall goal of supporting, building and accelerating the DFS ecosystem in an effective manner in Bangladesh.

For the full list of assessments completed under mSTAR/Bangladesh, see the Technical Reports section on this webpage.

Tajmary Akter has been a technical specialist with mSTAR/Bangladesh since September 2016. She has experience working with agriculture, nutrition, livelihoods and market development programs with an expertise on gender issues. She completed her Masters in Anthropology and has worked as a development professional for more than eight years.

As mSTAR’s project in Bangladesh comes to a close this fall, mSTAR/Bangladesh staff write on their perspectives from four years of a successful project, where mSTAR/Bangladesh helped enroll over 24,000 individuals—most of whom are women—into digital financial service accounts and helped USAID IPs and beneficiaries transact around $1.83 million digitally. The activity brought two new financial products to market with Bank Asia and IFIC Bank, including micro-credit to farmers with lower interest rates and more favorable repayment terms than any other alternative on the market today. Through this effort, mSTAR/Bangladesh facilitated loan disbursement to 795 farmers. Both banks are interested in scaling up these efforts.

Digital financial services (DFS) are playing a key role in achieving financial inclusion objectives worldwide, and Bangladesh is no different from global trends.

The mSTAR/Bangladesh team has been working in the DFS space in Bangladesh since September 2013 and has seen firsthand the phenomenal growth in DFS adoption, particularly mobile financial services (MFS), in the country over the last couple of years.

While the adoption of DFS has increased rapidly, barriers to DFS uptake remains a concern for traditionally marginalized and financially excluded populations in Bangladesh. DFS usage in Bangladesh is mostly composed of cash-in and cash-out services, which is in part due to limited availability and awareness of additional use cases. Marginalized and financially excluded populations, however, require a wider range of financial solutions and serving them presents both unique opportunities and challenges in the design and delivery of these solutions. There is no single solution. Innovative DFS products and services are the only way to address those unmet needs.

mSTAR/Bangladesh (mSTAR/B) has helped to successfully pilot test two completely new DFS innovations (see more here and here) in Bangladesh to provide smallholder farmers with access to agricultural loans, savings, transfers and merchant payments. These pilots are the first examples to date in Bangladesh where a bank and MFIs have partnered to extend micro-credit agricultural loans to farmers. Farmers are also able to use such micro-credit to securely and easily purchase inputs from participating retailers through a digital channel, in particular through mobile phones and NFC-enabled debit cards. Farmers are now able to access micro-credit at rates less than half of what they had previously had access to and with extremely flexible re-payment terms and conditions, with repayment due in full after six months, as opposed to weekly repayments from other sources.

While implementing those DFS innovations, there were few areas where we had to give some distinct concentration to successfully support optimal results from these pilots so that these initiatives can be scaled up in future. We found the following to be particularly important in that regard.

Needs Assessment: A needs assessment is very important before designing and implementing any innovations through any channel, whether DFS or not. In case of the above-mentioned innovations, we conducted DFS assessments for Agricultural Value Chains (AVC) and separately Rice Value Chains (RVC) to understand the needs, capacity and aspirations of the different value chain actors.

Selection of DFS Provider and Target Base: Selecting a DFS provider is not always easy. DFS providers have different service offerings, pricing, interest, reach, and customer service. Successfully deciding which DFS provider is the right fit for the pilot requires planning and research. Similarly, it is also recommended to start off pilots in one or two areas on a small scale at the beginning. Learnings and experiences from such pilots can be used to design large scale transitions. For these two pilots, we partnered with Bank Asia Limited and USAID’s Agricultural Extension Support Activity (AESA) project, implemented by Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM), as well as IFIC Bank Limited and the USAID RVC project, implemented by IRRI/Bangladesh.

Product Design & Defining Service Delivery Channel: Throughout the product design process and service delivery channel identification, strong involvement of all partners is essential to shape and guide the development of product concepts. In our case, through active participation from all partners, they were able to deliver flexible micro-credit solutions tested through both mobile phones and NFC-enabled debit card for two groups of target customers.

Setting Pilot Goals and Expectations: It is important to set goals and expectations of the pilot, which eventually helps to determine focus, define specific measurable targets and offer motivation. Before starting these pilots, we worked with the partners to define all the parameters that should be achieved and how we would define success.

Coordination among Stakeholders: Synchronization between stakeholders carries a huge importance to make an initiative successful. In our pilots, all partners were very clear and agreed in writing to pilot objectives, their roles and benefits, the operating model and other relevant issues.

Training and Field Readiness: Providing field forces and the targeted customer base with training and capacity building on how the services work and their potential benefits are critical, as is thinking about how to communicate these messages to other relevant parties. Along with our partners, we helped to conducted several trainings and workshops before implementing those mentioned pilots.

Capturing Pilot Impacts: It is very important to capture impacts from pilot testing to measure whether the pilot was successful and actually met the needs of the target base, as well as to identify possibilities to scale up the initiatives. For both our pilots, we conducted pre- and post-assessments with 109 farmers, six ag-input retailers and one MFI. Based on those assessments, it appears that in addition to the better interest rates and repayment terms, the loans have also enabled farmers more flexibility in the types of inputs they purchase. Thanks to these products, farmers are no longer dependent on credit from retailers, who would often push them to buy certain products. In addition, for farmers who previously had higher interest loans with rapid repayment, these products offer more flexibility on when they can sell their crops as the flexible repayment terms enable them to sell their crops later at a higher price, rather than rushing to sell.

The mSTAR/Bangladesh team, along with all other partners, is now working to scale up those initiatives. More than 3,100 farmers and 50 ag-input retailers have already registered through these initiatives in just 10 months since they launched. While this is only a drop in the bucket of a country with more than 160 million people, we hope that these ground-breaking innovative products will serve as inspiration to catalyze a revolution in agricultural financing in Bangladesh.

Md. Majidul Haque has just under a decade of experience in the technology and financial services sectors that include telecom, banking and international development organizations with a focus on new business, product development, project management, action research and business development related to digital financial services (DFS), financial inclusion, e-commerce, payment gateway & value-added services (VAS). Majidul has successfully introduced DFS to a wide range of segments, including smallholder farmers, ag-input retailers, local government officers, community health workers, ultra-poor women, slum dwellers, ready-made garment workers and field staffs. He served as the technical lead – DFS with FHI 360 from April 2016 until July 2017.

As mSTAR’s project in Bangladesh comes to a close this fall, mSTAR/Bangladesh staff write on their perspectives from four years of a successful project, where mSTAR/Bangladesh helped enroll over 24,000 individuals—most of whom are women—into digital financial service accounts and helped USAID IPs and beneficiaries transact around $1.83 million digitally. The activity brought two new financial products to market with Bank Asia and IFIC Bank, including micro-credit to farmers with lower interest rates and more favorable repayment terms than any other alternative on the market today. Through this effort, mSTAR/Bangladesh facilitated loan disbursement to 795 farmers. Both banks are interested in scaling up these efforts.

By Ataur Rahman, mSTAR/Bangladesh Project Lead

For the past four years in Bangladesh, the mSTAR project has worked to completely transform USAID implementing partner (IP) payment streams. When we first started project operations in Bangladesh in 2013, we found that almost all project expenditures in Bangladesh at the field level were being done in cash. This is not that surprising. Cash is the most widely accepted form of payment across Bangladesh. InterMedia’s Financial Inclusion Insights found that 67 percent of Bangladeshis have yet to adopt DFS. But cash is risky and can be expensive, in terms of travel and staff costs needed to transport it around. Our job was to help show IPs the benefit of digitizing those transactions and supporting them to do so.

To date, mSTAR/Bangladesh has helped enroll over 24, 000 individuals—a majority of whom are women—into digital financial service accounts and helped USAID IPs and their beneficiaries transact just over US $2 million digitally. Since transitioning to digital payments, IPs like WorldFish realized annual savings of US $19,150 and reduced the administrative burden on technical staff by 600 days annually. Another IP, Dnet, saved the equivalent of 20 full-time staff per year in reduced administrative tasks while realizing an annual benefit of around US $60,900.

Here’s how we’ve transitioned these IPs and saved them valuable time and money.

The first step we take when digitizing payment streams is fully assessing the need or use of payments by understanding the beneficiaries of a project and the project itself. Through direct conversations with project staff and beneficiaries, we have found that while most program staff own mobile phones and are aware of mobile money, most don’t use it. Those who are adoptees only use basic products and services, such as personal transfers. This is because they are often broadly unaware of the intricacies of digital financial services (DFS), such as mobile financial services and agent banking products, and therefore lack trust in them.

Our conversations with projects made it clear that awareness is key. By increasing DFS-specific knowledge, we find that projects immediately recognize the benefits and are keen to adopt. While some organizations are trying to increase the uptake of DFS by increasing their knowledge and capacity to use DFS products, more effort and engagement is required. To this end, the mSTAR team in Bangladesh has focused its energy on increasing DFS-specific awareness among USAID-funded project staff and beneficiaries.

We provided hands-on training directly and through partner organizations to interested projects to promote DFS products among groups that previously had little access to such information. Group work in workshops and discussions identified potential gaps and established methods to overcome challenges. These workshops targeted each level of an IP, from project leads and finance staff, to program staff, frontline managers and beneficiaries, so that we could tackle every link in the IP value chain.

We found that it is important to include all levels of staff in the process to grapple with challenges throughout the management structure. A top-down approach often excludes practical field realities from the conversation, although DFS can’t be implemented without interest and buy-in from top management.

At mSTAR/Bangladesh, we have found that knowledge is power. An informed person is more likely to adopt DFS as compared to a person who is unaware of DFS and its potential. This reflects the need to better promote DFS products and their associated benefits in a language that can be easily understood by those who may find it difficult to differentiate between myths and facts. In our first year and a half, mSTAR/Bangladesh primarily reached out only to development projects but with time, we began to engage with donor agencies, DFS providers and regulators to identify gaps and to come up with realistic solutions. mSTAR/Bangladesh believes that access to formal financial services is not a luxury but a basic need for all—and awareness raising is one of the tools that can help inform stakeholders of the ways forward to achieving this goal.

Ataur Rahman has been the project team lead for mSTAR in Bangladesh since its second week of implementation in October 2013. Prior to joining mSTAR, he was the head of outreach at Dnet for the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA) Bangladesh Initiative where he helped to design and implement mobile value added services and pilot the use of mobile money within the program. Before that he worked for the Bangladeshi government’s Access to Information (A2I) program led by Prime Minister’s Office funded by UNDP and the Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN), a collision of ICT4D initiatives secretariats.

As mSTAR’s project in Bangladesh comes to a close this fall, mSTAR/Bangladesh staff write on their perspectives from four years of a successful project, where mSTAR/Bangladesh helped enroll over 24,000 individuals—most of whom are women—into digital financial service accounts and helped USAID IPs and beneficiaries transact around $1.83 million digitally. The activity brought two new financial products to market with Bank Asia and IFIC Bank, including micro-credit to farmers with lower interest rates and more favorable repayment terms than any other alternative on the market today. Through this effort, mSTAR/Bangladesh facilitated loan disbursement to 795 farmers. Both banks are interested in scaling up these efforts.

In a world where we want to make an impact across borders, cultures, viewpoints and motivations, dialogues such as stakeholders’ meetings, conferences, formal network gatherings and seminars play an integral role. Dialogues like these allow for networking and relationship building, for role models to inspire next generation change makers, and for the exchange of experiences.

In the last few years, our team at mSTAR/Bangladesh has built a strong local and international network of representatives from development organizations, donor agencies, digital financial services (DFS) providers, mobile network operators, technology solution providers, insurance companies and regulatory bodies – people who are doers and makers, who believe what we believe: that Bangladesh has all the potential in the world. Without this community, our work in supporting acceleration and adoption of digital payments would not be possible.

The first Mobile Money Consultative Group (MMCG) meeting was first held in August 2014 and ever since then, it has successfully created a community of passionate individuals who believe in the benefits of using digital financial services and ultimately building an inclusive digital ecosystem where all segments of society have access to formal financial services, particularly those at the bottom of the pyramid. MMCG provided a platform for change makers to come together and discuss challenges and innovative solutions. Held quarterly, the MMCG has been covering various issues from the importance of financial literacy to the need for innovation in mobile financial services products. Furthermore, several digital financial service providers have expressed many times during the meetings that they see all the challenges as an opportunity for them to develop their products in such a way that the challenges can be eliminated. Most importantly, our team believes in promoting collaboration, trust and community – the tenets of a strong digital financial ecosystem and after successfully conducting nine MMCG meetings, we can say that is what we have attained.

Another major event that mSTAR/Bangladesh (mSTAR/B) has hosted that I am particularly proud of is the Financial Inclusion Week event in October 2016. Aligning with the global theme ‘Keeping Clients First in a Digital World,’ mSTAR/B hosed an event entitled ‘Increasing the Uptake of Formal Financial Services through a Client-Centric Approach.’ The event successfully explored how different actors, from development organizations, to financial service providers, to government programs, have supported the development, promotion and uptake of digital financial services in Bangladesh. mSTAR/B was one of the very few organizations who took part in this global conversation. The modality of the workshop was designed in such a way that it provided the participants to perform a lively, interactive discussion where they explored scenarios reflecting existing needs, barriers to accessing formal financial services in Bangladesh and the actions and steps required to further accelerate financial inclusion.

The core purpose behind hosting any dialogue facilitation is to help people connect. Dialogues give organizations opportunities to see what other people are working on and understand challenges, and the need to develop new innovative products that would benefit all segments of the population. For us, that was the main objective. We aimed to provide such platforms that would help a development organization connect with a DFS provider or other development organization and inspire individuals to think of building the ecosystem through collaboration.

Tasnuba Sinha has been with mSTAR/Bangladesh since August 2016. During that time, she organized five events promoting dialogue facilitation. She has always been passionate about working in the development sector and graduated with a degree in Economics. Prior to mSTAR/Bangladesh, Tasnuba worked at a tech startup in Bangladesh.